Pekapeka Wetlands - Hastings

Last time I was up Hastings way I passed what looked to be a new walkway of some sort that was in the process of being built. This time I was able to stop and visit. The Pekapeka Wetlands have been turned into a place to be with nature. You can walk across the board walks, sit and relax in the sunshine and enjoy the birds going about their daily tasks around you.

Juvenile black swans feeding on the weeds.

The Welcome Swallows were doing their best to chase us away from one area. It was near a bird watching hide that had been built in the middle of some really tall vegetation making it impossible to see any birds, but I suspect the swallows had a nest in their somewhere. They were dive bombing us trying to move us on. It worked, we moved.

Welcome Swallows

The Australian Coots were a delight to see because this family was a bit older than the ones we photographed in Palmerston North. The chicks were at their juvenile stage where they had lost their ugly faces and orange feathers and now looked sleek and black like the parent birds, just missing the white front plate.

Australian Coots - parent and four juveniles

It was also the first time I had photographed a Dabchick. While I got to see it quite a bit as it motored away from us all the time then dove into the water, it was very hard to get a good shot of. I think it was underwater as much as it was on top. Cute little guy though.

Dabchick

There is obviously more development happening in and around the wetlands and I am sure it is going to get better and better from a photographer's point of view. I loved that there was seating where we could just sit and wait for the bird life to grow accustomed to our being there with them and move closer to us. Bird photography often requires a huge amount of patience and this is a place I will go back to.

Australian Coot - adult

Australian Coot - Juvenile

Goldfinch at the carpark of the wetlands

Where have they gone?

I haven't picked up the camera much this week as I have been deep inside a learning curve with Sharepoint set up and administration. I am learning the hard way that it is not as user friendly on the admin side as they make it out to be. Today I blew most of it away and started over again. This time round it will work because I won't let it do otherwise!

The toon tree has started changing from the bright pink to its summertime green. Currently it is a sickly salmon colour. I was hoping to photograph lots of waxeyes with this colour background but most of them appear to have gone elsewhere just lately. There are still a few about but not the numbers we had in early spring. I am wondering if they are not busy sitting on a second clutch of eggs, I certainly hope so anyway.

We have regular visits from the tui now and judging by the amount of pollen on his face we are after the flax flower feeding. It was amusing to see it poke out its tongue which had turned bright red from the sugar water. It has a bit of red food colouring in it.

More macro

I haven't really had a lot of time to pick up the camera of late and the birds are getting totally neglected. They are still coming to visit the feeders but they haven't had a camera pointed at them in well over two weeks! I am becoming a little bit obsessed with achieving the reflection in the water droplet thing. Reading up lots and playing with the macro lens some more. I have a feeling that I need to get a whole lot closer to the droplet but I am working on making that happen.

In the mean time I have been playing some more and these are a few of the results. After doing some research I was pleased to see a reflection in the main droplet of water but when I changed the flower to something different I lost the reflection which was a little disappointing. I am sure there is an easier way and I will find it!

Macro magic

I did a radical thing this afternoon. I took of my big lens and replaced it with a macro. Macro photography is not something I have done very much of, and when I have, I have generally used my 70-300 zoom lens to achieve it. Every time I picked up my macro lens I got frustrated with the results. So for about four years now it has sat untouched, except when I have lent it to others.

Now, I have decided it is time to revisit the macro. I know a bit more about my camera now and how to achieve the results I want. Google tells me where the sweet spot is on my lens and a recent workshop at the PSNZ regional convention gave me the idea. These images are not so much about recording nature as they are about creating art using nature as a tool.

These images were achieved with coloured plastic and dandelion seeds and a whole lot of guesswork. I am really happy with the results and will be trying lots of new things now that I have worked out how to make the camera do what I want.

Royal Spoonbills at Petone

I went looking for the tui again at Petone Estuary last night. I like the spot there for them because the light is behind me and illuminates the tui feathers beautifully at that time of day. Alas they were no where to be seen. The tide was on its way out and there was a white-faced heron mooching about but he wasn't doing anything exciting. I wandered about for a bit before hubby asked "what are those white birds over there?"

I knew in an instant what they were and was very keen to get 'over there'. Unfortunately that would have involved wading out in the water so I had to make do with some long distance shots of the two Royal Spoonbills that were casually feeding in the shallow water. They certainly did look very regal in their breeding plumage.

One of the bird took flight and headed over the other side of the estuary. I managed to capture one shot as it left. I wasn't ready for it to be flying however as the second one was still there I quickly flicked settings on the camera and when it took off too (as I knew it would), I clicked away with a smile.

With the sun shining directly on the white birds it was extremely hard not to get the whites to blow out, especially as I was shooting from such a distance. While the resulting images are cropped, I am happy with the outcome. Next time I might just have to find a dingy!

A bit of fun

Sometimes it is not about taking a great photo, it is just about recording the moment. This afternoon the sun was so bright that any photo of took of the birds in the back yard was almost certain to be a silhouette, so there wasn't much point in trying. Then the birds decided it was bath time and I just couldn't resist. None of these photos are technically correct, or even close for that matter but they are fun to look at and that is what counts.

More from yesterday...

We arrived at low tide and everything was green! Not what I am used to seeing at low tide, usually it is a muddy brown wet sand look. I don't know what has caused it but there has been a sudden growth of all things green under the water and come low tide it is like a green carpet.

All the weed was causing the white-faced heron some trouble as it searched for food in the shallow pools. Usually stirring up the sand will reveal dinner but this time it was dinner with greens! It didn't stop the heron from actually finding something to eat, but you could see it was struggling a bit more than normal.

The swans on the other hand like the weed and there was a good number of them out in the distance nibbling away at it. Must have looked like a banquet to them! Still nothing could entice me away from the tui in the flax bush once I had found them.